IDENTITY & ETHNICITY
Ethnic Identity
"Fixed Characteristics" (Congenital)
The idea that one's ethnic assignment is based on biological construct (born with a particular ethnicity (1 or more).
"Symbolic Ethnicity" : Gans (1979) ethnicity that is individualistic in nature and
without real social cost for the individual. Largely demonstrated in White Americans.
"The ethnicity they claim is more often than not a
symbolic one-with all of the voluntary, enjoyable, and intermittent characteristics"(Water, 1996). This is commonly understood as "White privelege".
Individual Assimilation
Concept that an individual chooses the
ethnicity of their preference within a social
category. "Passing" is an example of this -one "raised as one race who change at some point and claim a different race as their identity".
Racial Identity
Research Question: How does symbolic ethnicity (in the U.S.) perpetuate and reinforce the ethno-racial divide and inequality of racial minority groups?
Challenge: Symbolic ethnicity has isolated and "confined" groups of non-White Americans to be identified in terms of the construct and standards prescribed in that of White American/European descent. In this way, non-White groups currently do not have the option of an authentic "symbolic ethnicity" in the U.S.
Conclusion: "When White Americans equate
their own symbolic ethnicities with the socially enforced identities of non-
White Americans, they obscure the fact that the experiences of Whites and
non-Whites have been qualitatively different in the United States and that the
current identities of individuals partly reflect that unequal history".(Waters, 1996)
